Debuting UK-US experimental black metal trio Qasu join Phantom Limb for inaugural album A Bleak King Cometh, a crushing and terrifying self-described “ancient future black metal” that swallows elements of blackened psychedelia, occultist techno, and tripped-out sound design.

Formed by members of “somewhat known” existing acts, Qasu hit an immediate and confident stride of finessed songwriting on their debut release. Its riffs are cataclysmic, whether agonisingly slow or razor sharp; its blastbeats are breakneck, meaty; its vocals howled with tortuous passions; its mythology crafted with narrative totality. Their own description - “ancient future black metal” - is apt. Qasu’s world is one of witch-burning, human sacrifice, heretical ritual, and arcane animism, but also of alien landing, paleofuturist sci fi, sequence codes, and stargates. Vocalist and electronics programmer Rahsaan Sagan propels the music into terraformed outer worlds with beat production and gauzy synthesis, but brutal blastbeats performed by drummer Nikhil Talwalkar (aka teen death metal prodigy Anal Stabwound) root it firmly back on earth. Likewise its title. “I don’t think we need to explain who the “Bleak King” is,” writes instrumentalist and songwriter Aldous Daniken, “but we have found ourselves in a dark time in human history.”

In knowing pursuit of the subversion of black metal tropes Qasu employ queasy and disorientating loops of moaning synthesis, autotuned vocals, new wave synths, techno kick drum, field recordings, taiko drumming, and pulsing 808 beats while psychoactive substance drips from the walls throughout.

Taking their name from a dream in which Aldous Daniken met a “destructive, powerful, but ultimately protective ghost,” Qasu work remotely, with Daniken collecting contributions from Sagan and Talwalkar to complete in his own studio. Daniken and Sagan are based in the UK, Talwalkar in New York. A Bleak King Cometh is their debut release.